“Joshua, if you don’t get up off your lazy…” Heidi breathed in. “You are such a selfish snot.”

I said nothing. This work was beneath me, and beneath every God, of course. She was harvesting food still on the next day, and she wanted me to assist. I was sitting nearby on a rock, just watching her.

Her eyebrows furrowed in anger. “Forget it…” She continued on her own, her back turned to me.

She was trying to pull up a particularly tough plant from the soil. She grabbed it by the root, positioning her foot on a nearby rock for leverage. Her foot slipped off the rock and she fell backwards.

A little worried, I ran to her side, hefting her up.

She pushed me away. “Dammit! This miasma is killing my plants! Why are we cursed with this poison…?”

Feeling somewhat guilty, I clasped my hands behind my back. I gave in and told her, “I’ll help you, Heidi,”

“I’m not sure I want your help. Why don’t you just go inside. You’re a God, apparently, and it’s what Gods do.” She fell to her knees in despair. She was much stormier today than she was yesterday. Such was the ever-changing way of human emotion. She got to her feet and sighed. “I can barely afford to feed myself…”

She got back to work after that, and I followed suite. Without a word, I helped her. By her smile, I could tell she appreciated it.

We worked until sundown, and, with both of us working, her crops and garden began looking presentable. We kept some for her to eat, and the rest to sell or trade. My hands were worked raw, and I’d never been more grateful in my life for a simple sip of cold water. Normally, Gods did not get hungry or thirsty; they ate or drank merely for pleasure. But with my powers stripped, I seemed to need it. An unwelcome surprise.

Heidi did most of the work, though, so I could only imagine how tired she felt. She didn’t like her father, but  she depended on him to help her do this hard work, and now all she had was me. 

Heidi worked a little longer than me, and when she was done, she sat down on a rather large rock in her garden, watching the sunset in silence. I sat down next to her. She looked lost in thought. “I'm so tired… Joshua, if you’re a God, answer me this… why does it seem like I was built just to suffer?”

She had a green bruise on her arm from where her Father had punched her the other day before he had died. I closed my eyes, feeling that old burning hatred boiling in my very bones. This girl deserved better than that. 

Whenever I’d looked at her from my pool in the clouds, she’d been nothing but kind and helpful to others whenever possible. She took time out of her day to comfort crying children who had no homes, gave extra gold to families even poorer than her own, and even offered help to her neighbors if they needed an extra farm-hand. A hundred human beings could never hope to be as decent as Heidi was, and she didn’t even have to try. I didn’t know why good people like her always seemed made to suffer. Perhaps it was because their kindness was taken advantage of.

All I could say to her was, “You get what you give, Heidi. You shall have everything one day.”

She laughed and changed the subject. “You think so, huh? Anyway, Can you cook, Joshua?”

“No. If we Gods want to eat, we just snap the food into our hands. We don’t need to eat, though. The only reason for us to do so is because we like to taste something once in a while.”

“Well, one of us is going to have to learn so I don't starve.” She stated.